THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A PDOIS SUPPORT GROUP

Drawing lessons from Halifa Sallah's speeches in Washington D.C and New York
  that as member of the PDOIS leadership that; the Gambian people must not
surrender their sovereign rights to determine the affairs of their country
to a small group they called politicians as if it is the birth right of a
few to lead the country but must accept that they have a voice and power to
dictate where  their country is to head to;
    that keeping  the people ignorant has enabled a few people at the helm
to subject them to inducement  and intimidation in order to seize their
birth right to determine how their country is governed;
    that economically the Gambia is sinking and what is seen as development
in the Gambia is a by product of heavy borrowing amounting to 1800 million
dalasis between 1994 to date;
    that with an inherited debt burden of 3000 million dalasis, Gambia  now
has to settle 4.8 billion dalasis worth of loans;
    that the state employs  less than 15,000 employees while the private
sector employs approximately 20,000 in a situation where the 132,000
children in our primary schools in 1996 would be seeking employment within
the next ten years;
    that democracy must be more than mere voting every five years to retain
or change faces;
    that it should be a tool of empowering the people to gauge the
programmes  of political parties and make informed choices;
    that PDOIS aims to provide a new kind of leadership to the Gambian
people;
    that its concept of democracy is that the people  must both be
enlightened and empowered to select committees at the village and ward
levels to take part  in monitoring  the development projects at that level
as well as safeguard the rights of the residents;
    that the income of representatives must be proportional to the income of
other professionals in the public service and should be required  to put the
national interest  before their personal interest;
    that constitutions and electoral laws and other instrument  of
governance  or representation should be made known to the people so that
political leadership will not be mystified.
    That PDOIS aims to promote awareness for each Gambian to refuse to be
any ones tool to get to power; that it strive to eradicate politics base on
ethnicity, religious bigotry, gender chauvanism and any other form of
sectionalism; that it hopes  for the emergence  of a Gambian who is
conscious  of ones worth and the importance of being a part of a nation,
Africa and progressive  humanity;
    that in the economic sphere PDOIS calls for the management of public
finance and public corporations  in such a way that they facilitate the
growth  of productive base of the national economy;
    that foreign investment will compliment and not be a substitute for self
reliant initiatives, that all economic actors and actresses would be
encourage to corporate to enhance production  and greater welfare and
security;
    that loans and aid will be a supplement to self reliant initiatives
rather than a basis of indebtedness and conditionality;
    that PDOIS calls for a government which can earn the respect  of the
African  and international community because of enlarging the awareness of
the Gambian people and ensuring their complete control of the Gambia through
various forms of peoples participation schemes that could serve as an
example of a country where leaders are humble servants of a people;
     that PDOIS calls for a government  where the leaders  would prefer to
resign when they are confronted with  conditionalities  that will not serve
the interest  of the people;


   We the people who are convince of these opinions have decided to
established a PDOIS  SUPPORT GROUP with the following objectives;
  To ensure;
  1. That we give the widest dessemination of all information  produced by
PDOIS so that the disinformation regarding  PDOIS policies , positions and
programmes would be eliminated.

  2. That Gambians  in the US are informed of all developments  in the
country irrespective  of party affiliation or political  opinion or
otherwise so that they can make informed choices.

  3.  That resources are mobilised to support the Nursery schools, Adult
literacy programmes, Civic education initiatives, Disaster relief projects
and other activities designed to strive or enlighten the people to be free
from ignorance.

  4.  That Gambians take part in struggling for standards of governance to
be established irrespective of party affiliation so that we can always act
in common to combat human right abuses and other and other abuse of
authority.

  5.  That the Gambians abroad can come together to influence the
independent electoral commission to implement the powers given to it by
section 141  of the Election decree to facilitate the participation of
Gambians abroad as voters in presidential elections.

  The group has the following contact addresses at the moment  to facilitate
coordination  of activities pending its further restructuring by those who
will become members.


Contacts:

Pa Samba Jow                       Mbye Ceesay
(763)531 8216                      (614) 818 9474
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